Grady Hatton Jr. would expect so much of his players that Bob Aspromonte, his third baseman with the Astros, remembers players jokingly asking him, "Well, were you that good a player?"

Of course, they all knew the answer was yes.

The Beaumont native, a 16-year professional baseball player and manager, died Thursday morning of natural causes at his home in the southeast Texas town of Warren. He was 90.

"He was just a solid baseball guy," said Larry Dierker, a pitcher throughout Hatton's 21/2-year tenure as Astros manager from 1966-68. "He knew the game and was fatherly in a lot of ways with the younger guys. Just about anybody you could name in the '60s, from Joe Morgan to Rusty Staub and Bob Watson, nobody is going to say anything bad about Grady Hatton."

Following his playing career, Hatton worked his way through the managerial ranks, including stops with the Astros' Class AAA affiliate in Oklahoma City.

"Most of the young players that came up to Houston from Oklahoma City played for Grady, and all of them wanted him to be the major league manager," Dierker said. "They liked him because he was friendly, and they believed in him because they were winning."

The winning did not continue, though, as the Astros went a combined 164-221 under Hatton, who was replaced by Harry Walker 61 games into the '68 season.

"Whether you win or not, it's not always something the manager can control," Dierker said. "I think some guys were surprised we didn't just take off and start winning, but looking back through the eyes of experience, we probably just weren't ready to win yet."

Hatton's funeral will be at 10 a.m. Monday at First Baptist Church in Warren. Visitation will be 4-6 p.m. Sunday at Riley Funeral Home.